![](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125699074/318398370.jpg)
![Street Street](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125699074/579046913.jpg)
Welcome to, a subreddit dedicated to build the fighting game community, harbor a healthy competitive nature, and be welcoming to players and fans alike. What are your guys opinions on playing one character versus many different characters?
There’s a reason Street Fighter is probably the most popular fighting game series around, and this fourth installment proves it once again. Street Fighter Alpha 3 for PlayStation. The central protagonist in the Street Fighter series, and one of the most recognisable characters in fighting game history. Famous for his ‘Hadouken!’ battle cry.Photograph: PR Facebook.
My DJ is solid but that's about all I got. Do you think devoting too much time to multiple characters loses you valuable time to put into your main, or do you think the knowledge gained by learning and playing multiple characters is worth the sacrificed time that could be spent on your main instead?I've been trying to learn Ryu and it's a pretty humbling experience. I don't have my cheap knee shot you can't react to online or my auto footsies LK sobat to blow people up for free. My execution is good with DJ as a charge character but going to Ryu, my AA is awful at the moment, my muscle memory for punching out a quick DP against someone's jump is a little sloppy and the SF4 netcode doesn't help (I'm more successful in Fightcade at least, for what it's worth).Anyways.what does anyone else think?. I think it's good to look at what the pros do. Initially when Ultra came out a lot of pros started switching to other characters thinking their old main was gonna be too bad and that the new top tier characters would be too strong. But what we saw was that they began switching back to their old mains and kept a pocket top tier.What I think they found is that if you main a top tier then everyone knows the matchup, but if you main a mid tier character then you'll have character unfamiliarity in your favor.
Mid tier characters usually have at least one really bad matchup though and that's where their pocket top tier comes into play.That's for tournament play, but if you just wanna win online then pick an unpopular character and learn all of it's gimmicks. I'm way more scared of a Deejay with 3k PP than an Evil Ryu with 3k PP. It just depends on what character you play and how much you care about winning tournament. Playing as Honda, I don't stand a chance against Sagat or dhalsim. Even though I am very strong in these match ups, I stand a much better chance playing decapre. Plus it can be very mentally exhausting to play Honda all the time, so it kept the game fun for longer to learn new characters. I think being able to play more characters can be a big advantage provided you can put it work in to make them as strong or close to as strong as your main.
Xian gave some great advice on excellent adventures regarding 5. He said that if you want to be competitive, you are gonna need to learn how to play every character.Gootecks was convinced mastering one character was the way to success, but Xian shot him down. I don't think Xian was referring to playing every character in tournament, but learning every character in order to, as we say in the marketing world, establish a SWOT analysis for each character.With the roster being at a small 16 to start out, I think that number isn't too steep to learn all the characters in a month or two, then pick which feel best/are highest tier (if you're looking to go to tournament). This will also give you ample time to learn characters before any big tournaments happen, so you can see what chars the pros are leaning towards.I travelled and competed a bit in sf4, but I plan on increasing that tenfold in 5, so I think I'm willing to sacrifice that 1-2 months up front of playing one character in order to better myself in the long run.The nice things about SF5, no matter who thinks otherwise, is that its barriers to entry are lower, as well as the game itself is based less around setups and more about spacing, neutral, and proper punishing. This ideology indicates that Valle was right: Sf4 players will struggle with V, but SF players will feel right at home.To learn every vega combo in sf4 could take months, but I was able to figure out every possible vega combo in 5 within a couple days. Same with Rashid, Ken, etc.
This is a good thing imo, and might mean that learning all the characters won't be a difficult task after all. The number of variables and potential situations has been reduced significantly in V, so I think that whatever character you end up deciding to play, that character needs to have tools that will make him great at the fundamentals of SF.
I have 2 characters at the same lvl. Main Makoto and secondary Vega, I play Makoto until I feel like I'm out of ideas or I'm getting beaten very badly, then I switch to Vega to play more chill for a few games before I switch back.It's not a matchup thing, it's more of an attitude thing for me, sometimes I simply don't feel like playing rushdown. Oh, and grapplers, never Makoto vs grapplers.I think having 2 characters is an advantage, I'm trying to learn a 3rd pocket character while I improve my main. Hmmmm I suppose it depends on the person. SnakeEyes is the prime example.
He uses a mid to low tier character in Zangief but he performs amazingly well. He knows that character in and out and knows match ups very well. I may go so far as to say he's the best US player, definitely one of the best for sure. Although he does have a pocket Evil Ryu, it just doesn't suit him. Same with PRBalrog and his pocket Fei Long he had for a short time.
Some people will simply stick to one character and take it to the limits and then it's all about the meta game. Sometimes there isn't overcoming a characters short comings but Ixion played very well with Dan even.Then you have someone like Infiltration who pulls out a random Abel and Chun. He's got many characters on a very high level. Of course he has his main but he's got other characters just in case and they don't show weaknesses that you might expect.
![Street Fighter Video Game Characters Street Fighter Video Game Characters](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dz_gp4R63OY/UAk8gFllkwI/AAAAAAAABv4/YYEuzTBYQTI/s1600/street+fighter+4+sf4+iv+sfiv+wallpaper+background+characters+roaster+capcom+fighting+game.jpg)
It's insane.So I think the argument can be made for both but in my humble, scrubby opinion is that one main is probably the best and try to stick it out, despite nerfs/buffs/etc. I like that the best I think but I doubt it's for everyone.
![](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125699074/318398370.jpg)